After Gary Hobish collapsed while swing-dancing with friends in Golden Gate Park Sunday, a fellow dancer raced to the nearby de Young Museum in search of a defibrillator. Most people in the group knew Hobish, 70, had a heart condition. Seconds counted.

Inside the museum, Tim O’Brien found himself pleading with a staff member to let him use the life-saving device, or to accompany him back to where Hobish, a legend of the Bay Area music scene, lay unconscious. O’Brien offered the museum staffer his wallet and his watch as collateral.

The museum staffer checked with his boss, but the answer was firm: The de Young defibrillator could not leave the building.

O’Brien sprinted empty handed back to the group, where a doctor who had luckily been on the scene was administering CPR. Paramedics arrived a few minutes later, but by then nearly 10 minutes had gone by, O’Brien said.

But I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends

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[–] Saoirse@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Slavish, mewling deferance to law and authority runs deeper in the American than even the capitalist ideology.

Legalism and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human species.

[–] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

No one has accused the Soviet Union of lacking legalism, and yet the thought of this happening there is impossible.